Third Time Lucky
by Sable Supernova
Summary: There were three times in Lily's life when she felt the need to seriously call people out on their behaviour. There was only one time when the other person listened, and understood. Oneshot.


**Written for:  
** **February Event at Hogwarts:** "I love you; you belong to me." / "I don't belong to anybody. I'll _never_ let anybody put me in a cage." / "I don't want to put you in a cage; I want to love you!" and (emotion/feeling) provocative  
 **Myths and Legends:** Cyclops – Write about a love being rejected. (I'm hoping that the second scene fills this prompt as well as I think it does, and to some extent the first scene, too.) Extra prompts: "Do you know what that means? I always win." / "All my life you've been there. You never left me. I can't leave you." / "I'm a damsel; I'm in distress. I can handle this. Have a nice day." / Someone having an imaginary friend. / danger / worship  
 **Chocolate Frog Cards:** Basilisk – write about someone who refuses to be controlled.  
 **If You Dare Challenge:** 639\. Empty Thought.  
 **200 Characters in 200 Days:** Petunia Dursley  
 **Writing Bingo:** Accio  
 **Valentine-Making Station:** Pop Culture Icon Sticker – Incorporate a quote by a pop culture icon into your story. I choose Taylor Swift: "Never believe anyone who tells you that you don't deserve what you want."  
 **Gringotts Prompt Bank:** (said words) chided, repeated, boasted, dared, bickered, barked, spoke, began, warned, clarified, blurted, asserted, demanded. (prepositions) nearby. (feelings and emotions) upset, distressed, dominated, frightful, pained, desperate, provocative.  
 **Words:** 2,994

* * *

 **Third Time Lucky**

It was summer, and Petunia sat in a garden chair on the lawn, a book closed in her lap. She had been reading, but had grown bored, and instead she watched the bees on the hydrangeas.

Lily was in the kitchen, staring through the window at her sister. She'd been trying to talk to her sister since she'd got home from school three weeks ago, but Petunia had done a good job of pretending that didn't exist. Lily had just about had enough. She'd woken that morning in a bad mood that had only matured as the morning wore on. Lunch had been the final straw. Lily asked her sister to pass the jug of water, and Petunia hadn't even looked up from her meal.

Lily, who'd been watching her sister for the past five minutes, sighed, deciding she'd had enough. She was feeling provocative, so she marched through the back door to her sister, sitting in the empty chair.

"Morticia was sitting there," Petunia immediately chided.

Lily rolled her eyes. Morticia had been Petunia's invisible friend as a child. The fact she was bringing her up now just proved to Lily how childish and petty Petunia was being about the whole situation.

"Tuney, why are you ignoring me?" the thirteen-year-old asked.

"Don't call me Tuney," was Petunia's short response. She opened her book again, pretending to read to avoid looking at Lily.

"Fine. Petunia. Why are you ignoring me?" Lily repeated.

"Because I want to. Because I don't want to talk to you. Ever. And I know it annoys you, and you've never had any patience. I'm older than you; I know you. I know every single way to get under your skin and believe me, I will. Do you know what that means? I always win," Petunia boasted, as if she were trying to gain some high ground.

"But why? Why are you trying to get under my skin? What have I done?" Lily dared to ask.

"You're so wrapped up in your own weird little world, you don't even see it!" Petunia snapped, sitting up straight, letting her book fall closed once more. "You're a freak! It's unnatural, and you walk around, talking about it all as if it's something to be proud of! Do you know what you sound like?"

"But it is something to be proud of, Tuney. I'm good at it. Really good, actually. I'm the best in my year in some subjects. Just because it's a bit different doesn't make it less than any other school," Lily bickered back, as if she could make her sister see sense if she said it often enough.

"Please, that argument didn't wash last time, why do you think this time will be any different?" Petunia sneered.

"Because apparently I'm ridiculously optimistic," Lily snarled, before relaxing into a tired sigh. "Are you jealous or something? Is that what this is about?"

"Jealous? Jealous? How did that even cross your mind? What is there to be jealous of? Oh, no! I don't go to a school full of freaks that I can't even talk about in public! I don't believe in imaginary creatures! Please, if anything you should be jealous of me," Petunia barked, her anger making her slightly red in the face.

"Look, I'm just trying to understand, okay? Because you're not making any sense. We were the best of friends until that letter arrived for me. You just turned on me, and I don't know why," Lily spoke, her voice calmer than before.

"There's nothing to understand. You're a freak, and I'm normal, and I hate you. We're not sisters any more. That's all there is to it," Petunia snapped, opening her book again as if that was it and the matter was closed.

Lily sat staring at her sister for a few moments, shocked and hurt by Petunia's statement, and how matter-of-fact it was. Her eyes began to dampen, but she refused to cry. She refused to give Petunia the satisfaction of seeing her so broken.

She stood and began to walk away, knowing that her relationship with her sister would never be the same again.

* * *

Two teenagers were sat with their backs against the castle wall, not looking at each other, not speaking. The cloud of words unsaid hung heavy in the air between them like an electrical storm waiting to spark. The boy with long dark hair, a sickly pale complexion, and a green and silver tie began to pluck at the grass beside him, fidgeting. The girl with auburn hair, forest green eyes, and a red and gold tie was staring at the clouds. Her friend and fellow Gryffindor, Mary McDonald, was still in the Hospital Wing after an attack by Mulciber and Avery last week – the latest and most lethal materialisation of their bullying. This was a problem for Lily, as Mulciber and Avery were the best friends of Severus, the boy sat beside her.

"You know what Mulciber and Avery did," Lily began, her voice heavy.

"I had no part in it," Severus immediately defended.

"That wasn't my question."

Severus said nothing.

"How can you still be friends with them when you know they'll do that without provocation?" Lily asked him, turning to look at him for the first time.

"How do you know she didn't provoke them? Because she said so?" Severus spat.

"Don't you dare," Lily warned. "Don't you dare turn this around on her. Yes, she said so. She's also the one in the Hospital Wing. Don't you dare try to tell me one of my best friends lied. You don't know Mary. I know you."

"What am I supposed to say?" Severus demanded. "They're my friends, and they hurt her, and I can't change either of those things."

"Yes, you can. You don't have to be their friend. I don't care what you think – you don't. You've made that choice and you're sticking by it, no matter the cost. I hope you know that by doing that, you're losing me," she asserted, seeing their future laid out in front of her if he continued on this path of self-destruction and denial.

"Lily, don't say that. Please don't say that," he blurted. Suddenly something desperate hung around the corners of his eyes, something Lily didn't quite understand.

"Why not? You need to face the truth. The person you are now isn't the little boy I made friends with. He's lost somewhere inside," she continued.

"Because I love you!" Severus returned. "You belong to me! You've been mine since we were nine years old, Lily."

"I don't belong to anybody," Lily clarified. "I'll _never_ let anybody put me in a cage."

"I don't want to put you in a cage; I want to love you!" Severus explained, looking both a little tired and frightful at his own confession.

"No. You don't. You only want to love parts of me. The parts you agree with. You want to love the idea of me you've built up in your head. She's not me. She never has been. You can't only have the good you see in someone – you have to take the bad parts too, the parts that aren't perfect, that don't quite fit. You don't want that," she countered, speaking as if his confession didn't come as a surprise; as if she'd known it all along but didn't want to confront it; as if she'd spent sleepless nights thinking about it and compartmentalising it until it made sense.

"And Potter does, does he?" Severus spat, venom in his voice.

"Why do you bring him into every argument? Why does this have to be about him? It's got nothing to do with him; it never has," Lily told him on a sigh. She spent a brief moment wondering if Severus's insistence that this was some sort of fight between him and James for her affection would push her straight into the arms of the very man he despised. She soon dismissed that notion as an empty thought.

"It's always about him! He's got under your skin; he's turned you against me," he retorted.

"The only one who turned me against you is you," Lily concluded and turned away from him.

She stood to leave, knowing that by walking away now, she was sealing their fates, ending their friendship for good. This wouldn't be the last time she spoke to him, she knew, but she'd hammered a few more nails into the coffin, and it was almost finished. All the good memories she had with him were soon to be buried, leaving just a twinge of regret and a bitter taste in her mouth.

* * *

"Accio!" Lily shouted, pointing her wand at the long table nearby. Curses and spells were flying all around in a rainbow of colours; it would have been beautiful if it wasn't deadly.

Lily, with astounding precision in her control, led the table to a stop right in front of her and immediately crouched behind it, hoping for a few moments' respite to tend to her injury before re-entering the fray. She wasn't stupid enough to think the table would last forever, so she kept her eyes and ears peeled on the battle around her as she looked at her arm. She didn't know what spell she'd been hit with, but it had opened a deep gash on her left arm that was spouting blood at a phenomenal rate, leaving her forearm and hand slick with red.

"Epsikey," Lily muttered, pointing her wand at the wound, hoping that it would meld enough of the flesh back together that she could continue fighting; that she would continue to be an asset to her comrades instead of a liability.

The flesh didn't fall back into place seamlessly – the wound was far too deep for that – but the blood flow reduced to a trickle, and a trickle she could deal with.

"Are you okay?" James asked as he suddenly appeared beside her, concern in his eyes as he stared at her.

Lily supressed her anger. "I'm a damsel; I'm in distress. I can handle this. Have a nice day," she bit before jumping up from behind her barrier and re-entering the scene, firing a few attacks at the Death Eaters before switching to defensive spells as they returned the favour. The Order of the Phoenix were winning; the Death Eaters were outnumbered, and slowly being pushed back. It was only a matter of time before their instincts for self-preservation kicked in and they departed.

Five minutes later, the Order of the Phoenix members found themselves stood in an empty hall, breathless and reeling, looking around at the destruction the fight had caused. At least they could rest safe in the knowledge that no one had died today. There was always that comfort. Slowly, they began picking up their pieces and leaving, each one returning home. Before Lily could Apparate anywhere, James approached her with the same look of concern he'd worn earlier.

"Lily, what was that about?" he asked softly.

Lily turned to look at him, and as soon as she did, all the pain she'd been holding inside for months rose to the surface. She felt her blood boil in her veins as clearly as she felt the cold metal of the engagement ring on her finger.

"You. Us. This. We used to be a team, you know. What happened?" she asked, fanning the flames of the fire she'd always had in her heart.

"I don't… I don't understand," James admitted, looking confused.

Lily looked away with a sigh. She saw Sirius, looking as though he was heading in their direction, but at the sight of the serious expression on Lily's face, he thought better of it and walked away, Apparating off like all the others, respectfully leaving them alone.

"Of course you don't. Why would you? You're not there to see it," she snapped, a little more angrily than she'd intended.

"Lily, just… start at the beginning. Tell me what I've done wrong. Tell me how I can fix it," James asked. There was a gentleness about his voice that Lily tried not to hear. It spoke of a sadness she didn't want to believe was real. He'd done this. He'd been doing it for months. How could he have not seen? Why did he have the right to be upset about it now?

She drew in a deep breath and collected her thoughts. She remembered the long nights she'd spent alone in a cold bed; she remembered the shopping trips, the visits to friends, the errands she'd had to run alone. She remembered the times she'd been pounced on, cornered, attacked on these trips because it had just been her, a poor little mudblood girl all on her own, ripe for the plucking. She cast her mind back to how it felt, exactly, to be in that situation where she'd had no one to rely on but herself, even though James should have been right there beside her.

"You're never there," she admitted, tears coming unbidden to her eyes. She blinked them away. She had to be strong if she was going to get her point across. She had to make him listen – not just hear, but really listen. "I know why – believe me I do. I understand. You're trying to protect me, I get it. You're wrapping yourself up in the war, fighting the grand battles, uncovering the information we need, getting right into the soul of the matter. You think the harder you fight, the sooner this will be over and the safer we'll all be; the sooner real life can begin. But you're just a man, James. You're just one person, standing up against a whole regime. Real life hasn't been put on hold for this war, you know. This _is_ real life. Right here, right now. And I'm alone," she finished.

James said nothing; he looked away, guilt and confusion switching places on his face as he tried to piece her words together into an order that made sense.

"In the daytime, you're in meetings; you're tailing people; you're gathering information. At night, you're on stake-outs, you're getting into fights, you're putting yourself in danger. And in between the two, when you are home, you're eating, you're sleeping, you're showering. You're not really there. You're home in body but not in mind. I've tried to be involved, you know I have. I try to volunteer for missions; I try to be involved in meetings, but you're scared. You're scared of losing me, I know. You want to protect me, and that's wonderful, but you're pushing me out. You don't see the truth but I do. I know how much safer I am by your side. James, whenever we've fought together, our opponents never stood a chance," she laughed a little, the memories floating to the surface. "We're so synchronised; we know each other so well."

The pained look on his face as the truth began to make sense to him tugged at Lily's heartstrings. She reached out for his hand before she continued.

"When you're not there, I'm not safe. You know Mulciber and Avery attacked me in the street, meters away from Marlene's house. You know Malfoy tried to drag me into a side alley on Diagon Alley. They know I'm alone. They know that makes me vulnerable. I've had to be strong, and independent, and I've had to learn how to defend myself, and while all of that makes me a better person, it's a mask I feel like I'm having to wear all the time. And that's exhausting," she finished, her sadness mixing with her exhaustion on her face as she spoke. Five minutes ago, Lily had wanted a fight, but the more she explained, the more the fight left her.

James said nothing for a few seconds as he thought about everything she'd just said.

"I guess… I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't see it. I didn't realise. I've been taking you for granted, haven't I? All those years I spent trying to win your heart and I take it for granted as soon as you give it to me," James admitted, crumpling in on himself, a little like a piece of paper in a harsh wind, as his eyes filled with tears yet to fall. "I was so wrapped up in doing what I thought was best that I didn't even stop to wonder if I was right. I should have talked to you about it. I should have asked you."

"James." Lily brought a soft, warm hand up to rest on his cheek. "There's nothing good ever come out of a sentence starting with 'I should have'. They're empty words. No one can change what's past. We can only look to the future and move on."

James tried to smile a little, but it fell flat.

"How can you just do that? This isn't just some little thing, is it? I've been treating you like that for months. You were right; I've been focusing so much energy on the idea that as soon as the war's over we can be happy, that I completely lost sight of everything that's important to me. I lost sight of you. This is real life. It's not some rehearsal before the show starts. It's real, and it's happening, and I've… completely messed up. How can you just dismiss that and say it's time to move on?"

"I've never treated you badly in the past? You've never forgiven me easily in the knowledge that the future will be better? James, all my life you've been there. You never left me. I can't leave you," she told him, the words falling from her lips like a promise.

"I love you. It's time I remembered that. I promise I'll be better," he whispered.

Lily leaned forward to place a gentle kiss on his chapped lips.

"I love you too."

* * *

AN: So the idea of this is that there were three times in Lily's life when she majorly called people out on their behaviour. The first two times, the people in question didn't see things from her point of view, or didn't want to, and pride got in the way and ultimately ruined relationships for good. But the third time, with James, his love for Lily was strong enough for him to let go of his pride, and he accepted his faults and owned them, which allowed them to move on together. I'm not sure how well it worked, but I hope I got that message across. Let me know in the box below and make my day :)


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